San Jose Students Find Gender Neutral Bathrooms On Return To Campus
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) -- Thousands of students in San Jose will encounter something new when they return to campus this week: gender neutral bathrooms.
School officials are trying to make facilities more inclusive.
At least one bathroom on every San Jose Unified campus is now all-inclusive and gender neutral.
That's 42 schools, including every high school, middle school and elementary school in the district.
Lincoln High School Principal Mathew Hewitson said, "As educators, we have to respond to the needs in our community and I think that's something our community wants to see in our schools."
Lincoln High was the first in the district to turn what were separate boy's and girl's restrooms into two all-inclusive restrooms.
It was prompted by that school's LGBTQ leaders who said some non-binary gender students did not feel comfortable.
There were few if any complaints and a special text line was set up to handle problems.
But some students are not comfortable with using the restrooms with other genders and there are still several gender specific restrooms on campus.
Student Adam Gin said, "It's kind of weird seeing a girl in the bathroom after growing up with strong boundaries with guys going to the guy's bathroom and girls going to the girl's bathroom."
Unlike Lincoln High, which re-designated the school's two main bathrooms, other schools may only turn one or two single-user bathrooms into all-inclusive.
Another student admitted it does take some getting used to, but said she agreed it was the right thing to do.
Student Grace Nauci said, "You're going to feel uncomfortable at first, but then you're going to get used to it and know the reason why they put it up. It's for a reason."
